Yanuni
Director: Richard Ladkani
Writer: Richard Ladkani
Seen on: 1.5.2026

“Plot”:
Juma Xipaia is the chief of the Xipaya people, the first indigenous female leader in her area in Brazil and an activist, fighting for indigenous rights and environmental protection. The movie chronicles her life in the lead-up to the creation of the first ministry for indigenous rights in Brazil and her role in it afterwards, as well as her and her husband’s on-going fight against illegal mining in the Amazon.

Yanuni is a strong documentary that sheds light on issues that I am not particularly familiar with, except in the broadest of strokes. I found it and Xipaia as a protagonist and person deeply captivating.

The movie starts strongly at a peaceful protest that Xipaia – and Ladkani (I assume) as cinematographer –  attends and leads. The protest is attacked by police, there are beatings and tear gas, and the footage they caught there is claustrophobic and very immediate. It’s a high-adrenalin start to a movie that I expected to be a bit more fiery speeches rather than action scenes.

The movie does feature speeches and political meetings and referendums, too, but it later returns to that action start when it begins to focus more on Xipaia’s husband for a while who works for the executive branch of the Amazon Protection Agency (my name for it): IBAMA. Basically his work seems to boil down to flying into the rainforest (or taking a boat) to blow up illegal mining operations. In the film’s single funniest moment, they talk about the employees of IBAMA – natural scientists and lawyers – as we watch a full military outfit preparing for a covert mission.

But for the most part the film focuses on Xipaia who does her best to be everywhere at once. The fact that she has gotten credible threats to her and her family and that her children need to be in hiding weighs heavily over her activism, and Xipaia’s understandable emotional uproar about that also finds space in the film, as well as her pregnancy.

Yanuni shows us that political activism often means a 24/7 commitment that affects everybody in your life. That you can achieve a lot, but there are also serious consequences. And no achievement is final – there is no ultimate victory, at least not yet. And it shows us what a deeply impressive person Xipaia is to continue to fight in that way – and to also demand her right for a private life as well.

Summarizing: really good.